1. Field of the Invention
This invention generally relates to network management and, more particularly, to a network of connected devices managed using power consumption oriented policies.
2. Description of the Related Art
With the convergence of expensive power, greater consumer demand, and government regulations, it would be desirable to have greater management capability over groups of high-energy consuming devices, such as multifunctional peripherals (MFPs), during a period of either involuntary or administratively imposed constraint on the use of power from the power grid. These periods of constraint may be mandated by state and local regulators and implemented through signals on the power grid. Additionally, it is conceivable that businesses may be required to install readers of these signals and respond accordingly to be in regulatory compliance.
Such a period of power constraint may also occur as a result of administrative policy within an organization. In that case, signals to devices and management applications may be initiated internally through a power management application.
There have been a number of studies conducted by universities and organizations, and voluntary trial runs through state regulatory bodies, particularly in California, focusing on power management. The trial runs and studies have generally focused on one of the two following approaches: Automatic power down of device when peak-power signal is received; and, dynamic transmission of varying rate charges based on power load, with voluntary reduction.
In the automatic power down approach, a business/residential user installs a peak-power sensor in the power supply of the device and demand-side management is imposed over a facility by remote control. The use of a power reader may be centralized and associated with all devices connected to an internal grid. Alternately, the reader may connected to the device on a per device basis.
A technology called GoodWatts™ makes such a product, which was installed by the energy utility in Ashland Oreg. The technology was installed to address the issue of the Ashland utility having to pay steeper wholesale rates from the Bonneville Power Authority (BPA) when demand is high. 100 residential test customers participated in the program and were given a $100 rebate in exchange for permitting Ashland to install the GoodWatts™ monitoring equipment in their homes, and for letting the BPA operate the equipment over the Internet.
Voluntary residential time-of-use rates experiments have also been conducted by Pacific Gas and Electric (PG&E), Kean et al., “Voluntary residential time-of-use rates: lessons learned from Pacific Gas and Electric Company's experiment”, IEEE Transactions on Power Systems, Vol. 3, Issue 4, November 1988, pp. 1764-1768. This residential TOU (time-of-use) experiment was one of the first in the country to examine a voluntary TOU tariff program. Analysis of the experimental data shows that in addition to providing some customers with the opportunity to achieve a windfall bill reduction, TOU rates can achieve significant load shifting. The study concluded that such programs bode well for other utilities that are contemplating offering TOU as a rate option to the residential sector, since the greater the degree of load shifting, the lower will be the rates of the customers who remain on the standard tariff. It was further concluded that PG&E's empirical findings from extensive surveys of both volunteers and non-volunteers provide valuable guidance for the marketing and customer education efforts to other utilities that wish to offer a TOU rate option to their residential customers.
FIG. 1 is a schematic block diagram depicting a single device job classification power management system (concurrent art). Another solution to power management has been presented in parent application SYSTEMS AND METHODS FOR CONTROLLING POWER USAGE ON A DEVICE, Chrisop et al. In the context of MFPs, a predetermined criteria, or voluntary actions, classify print jobs into one of two categories: regular (on-demand)—low consumption of energy; and, peak (non-on-demand)—high consumption of energy. During off-peak periods, both classes of jobs are processed. During peak periods, only the ‘regular’ class of jobs is processed and the ‘peak’ class is deferred until the next off-peak period. This method effectively controls the management of devices on an individual basis.
It would be advantageous if a peak power management tool existed for more effectively controlling high power consumption in a group of devices networked in a larges enterprise or organization.